EN
“Takahata seamlessly mixes the two pasts together, with Taeko occasionally even meeting her younger self. The two animation styles complement each other in a delicate but pronounced way and the temporal leaps are effortless. The 1980s are animated in a realistic style, etching out the lines on the faces of the characters or noting the perfect detail in a single head of safflower pollinated by a bee. The 1960s are shown in a more stylised manner with pastel, almost diffused edges to the frames, sketched out with items of memorabilia. For the most part Only Yesterday is so grounded in reality that, in the brief moments when it departs from realism, the effect is startling '. When schoolgirl Taeko first experiences 'teenage romance she is so elated that she literally walks upwards into the clouds.
Only Yesterday was considered something of a gamble – devoid of any easy-to-market, advert-friendly fantasy presence it had to stand up on the basis of the quality of its writing.”
Michelle Le Blanc and Coline Odell
"It would have some value if we portrayed kids like this in film. That's all I had. But I thought, 'it won't work as a film'. So I gave it up and threw the original away, only to pick it up every now and then. However, once I knew such material, nothing else seemed interesting when you're working on kids features. But I couldn't do it. I didn't have the skills. And the only person that seemed to have such skills was Takahata."
Hayao Miyazaki
“If Miyazaki hadn't been a producer, we wouldn't have been able to make the film. The plot is too complicated compared to the usual films. People are wary of this kind of story. The heroine is 27-years old and it is not a dramatic story. These are not the classic elements of an animated film. Normally, no financier would accept. They would all be too scared. But producer Miyazaki reassured them with aplomb. They thought the idea must be good since it came from him.”
Isao Takahata
“We know each other perfectly. We always have a lot of criticism to do with each other. But if someone dares to criticize him and I don't like it, I stand up for him!”
Hayao Miyazaki
